Officer Due Diligence Checklist for NZ Directors

Officer due diligence is the personal health and safety duty every director, partner and most chief executives in New Zealand carry under section 44 of HSWA. The law sets out six steps it includes. What it doesn't do is tell you what those steps look like on a Tuesday night when the board pack lands in your inbox.

The checklist below is the one I'd want a board to work through before the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 starts on 1 April 2027. For each step it gives you the question to ask and the evidence that shows the answer is real.

What Is Officer Due Diligence Under HSWA?

Officer due diligence is the duty in section 44 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 for every officer of a PCBU to exercise due diligence to make sure the PCBU complies with its health and safety duties. The standard is the care, diligence and skill a reasonable officer would use in the same circumstances, taking into account the nature of the business and the officer's position and responsibilities.

An officer is any director of a company, any partner, any general partner in a limited partnership, anyone in a comparable role in another body and anyone else who can exercise significant influence over the management of the business, such as a chief executive. Someone who only advises or makes recommendations isn't an officer.

The duty is personal and it can be prosecuted on its own. My post on director liability for health and safety covers the penalties and the cases.

The Six Elements of Officer Due Diligence

Section 44(4) says due diligence includes taking reasonable steps to do six things:

The first two elements are about knowing and the middle three are about making sure. The last one is the one most boards skip and it's the one the Gibson case turned on.

Officer Due Diligence Checklist

These are good-practice questions to test each element, not legal tests in themselves. The law asks what a reasonable officer would do in your circumstances.

1. Knowledge of health and safety

• Has every officer had a recent health and safety governance briefing? I suggest at least once a year
• Do officers know the main duties under HSWA, including the changes starting 1 April 2027?
• Could each director explain what a critical risk is and name the business's critical risks?

Evidence: a training or briefing record per officer and board minutes showing health and safety law updates were tabled.

2. Understanding the operations and their risks

• Does the board have a short list of critical risks, the things that could kill or seriously injure someone?
• Have officers seen the work done on site, not just in a presentation?
• Does the board know which work is done by contractors and where the shared risks sit?

Evidence: a critical risk register the board has signed off and a log of site visits by officers with what they looked at and what they found.

3. Resources and processes to manage risk

• Is there a named owner and a key control for each critical risk?
• Has the board approved the health and safety budget and staffing with the critical risks in mind?
• When a manager asks for money to fix a serious risk, how long does the answer take?

Evidence: the budget line, the owner list and any capital requests for safety with the decision and the date.

4. Incidents, hazards and timely response

• Do serious incidents and near misses reach the board within a set time?
• Does the board see whether corrective actions are closed and whether they worked?
• Do workers actually report or has reporting gone quiet?

Evidence: an escalation rule written down, an action tracker with closure dates and a note of what changed on site after each serious event.

5. Processes for meeting legal duties

• Does the business notify WorkSafe of notifiable events and preserve the site as required?
• Are worker engagement and participation working, including health and safety representatives where workers have asked for them?
• Does the business know which approved codes of practice apply to its work and whether it follows them or uses something equal or better?

Evidence: the notification log, the worker engagement arrangements and a compliance register that someone outside the health and safety team has checked.

6. Verification

• How does the board know the controls on its critical risks are working, other than being told?
• When was each critical control last checked in the field and by whom?
• Has anyone independent looked at the health and safety reporting the board relies on?

Evidence: field verification records for critical controls, internal or external audit findings and the board's response to them.

Officer Due Diligence After 1 April 2027

From 1 April 2027 the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 restates section 44 around three ideas: understand, ensure and verify. It also makes clear the officer duty applies to what an officer does in their governance role, not to any other job they hold in the business.

There are three other changes worth knowing. The steps become a closed list instead of an open one. The knowledge step is tied to health and safety as it relates to your business, not health and safety generally. The officer duty is about making sure the PCBU meets its own duties. Officers of small PCBUs will therefore mostly be focused on the narrower critical risk duties. For directors of larger organisations the duty stays substantially the same.

If you work through the checklist above, you're covering the same ground under either version of the wording. My guide to the Health and Safety at Work Amendment Act 2026 explains the rest of the changes.

What Boards Get Wrong About Officer Due Diligence

The most common gap I see is a board that's very well informed about activity and almost blind on outcomes. The pack shows injury rates, training completion and audits done. All of those describe effort. None of them tells a director whether the guard on the press is fitted tonight or whether the exclusion zone under the crane is being kept.

That was the gap in Gibson v Maritime New Zealand [2026] NZHC 813, where the High Court dismissed the former Ports of Auckland chief executive's appeal against his conviction and sentence for failing his due diligence duty. The port had a large safety programme. What the courts found missing was proactive checking that the controls on a critical risk actually worked. I've covered the Gibson decision in detail.

The other gaps are quieter and just as common. Directors rely on a single health and safety manager and never test what they're told. Site visits happen as tours, not as checks. Corrective actions are reported as closed when the paperwork is done, before anyone has looked at whether the fix worked.

How Often Should a Board Check Due Diligence?

The law doesn't set a frequency, it asks what a reasonable officer would do given the business and its risks. A rhythm I'd suggest most boards start from:

• Every meeting: critical risks first, with evidence of control checks, then serious incidents and the status of their fixes
• Every quarter: at least one officer site visit focused on a critical risk, written up for the board
• Every year: a governance briefing for all officers, a review of the critical risk list and an independent look at the reporting

Higher risk businesses will need more than this. The free Officer Due Diligence Check shows where your board sits against the six elements.

Frequently Asked Questions About Officer Due Diligence

What is officer due diligence?

Officer due diligence is the duty in section 44 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 for every officer to take reasonable steps to make sure their PCBU complies with its health and safety duties. It's measured against what a reasonable officer would do in the same circumstances.

What are the six elements of due diligence under section 44?

Knowing health and safety matters, understanding the operations and their risks, ensuring resources and processes to manage risk, ensuring incidents and hazards are reported and responded to, ensuring processes to meet legal duties and verifying all of those are provided and used.

Who counts as an officer under HSWA?

Company directors, partners, general partners in limited partnerships, people in comparable roles in other bodies and anyone who can exercise significant influence over management, such as a chief executive. Advisers who only make recommendations aren't officers.

Can an officer delegate due diligence?

An officer can rely on managers and specialists where that reliance is reasonable, however the duty itself stays with the officer. They still need to understand the risks, ask questions and verify what they're told.

Does the Amendment Act 2026 change officer due diligence?

From 1 April 2027 section 44 is restated around understand, ensure and verify, applies to the governance role only and becomes a closed list tied to the business's own risks. For directors of larger organisations the duty stays substantially the same.

What evidence shows an officer has exercised due diligence?

Board minutes that record questions and decisions, a signed-off critical risk register, records of officer site visits, field checks of critical controls, an incident action tracker and independent reviews of health and safety reporting.

Sources: Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, sections 18 and 44; WorkSafe, Officers' due diligence; WorkSafe, Understanding the changes to health and safety law; Global Workplace Insider, Gibson High Court decision. This post is general guidance, not legal advice.